Sebastian has a fine speaking voice, booming and clear, but his stentorian narration is hammy and over-dramatic, and the story he’s telling doesn’t really make a great deal of sense. On the surface, a man and a woman get together, the man points out he’s already engaged to be married to someone else, they both regret their choices; there’s a subtext which implies the woman is the man’s former partner, who’s since died, and the man is struggling to reconcile his love for her with his feelings for his new fiancée. Or maybe it’s just random nonsense, I don’t know. Sebastian, though, reads it so faux-passionately that it lands somewhere between a Sixties anti-drugs public service announcement and a really bad Shakespeare audio book.

It’s not acapella, and the backing track, all gentle guitars, hushed female choir and brushed drums, is quite pretty; pretty enough to make it sound as though there might be the kernel of a decent song buried here, certainly. There’s a third-bar chord change in particular which catches the ear in a very pleasing fashion. Unfortunately, the spoken-word narration kills it stone dead, and it’s so cheesy and bizarre I can’t really imagine anyone playing this more than once.

(Unless they had to, of course. I mean, I’ve just played it several times back to back to do this review, and I’m guessing that as a result, I’ve probably pushed myself up into something like the top 50 or so of the list of people who’ve listened to Angel In Blue the most times in all of history).

The liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 1 explain this baffling curio away as a vanity-feeding favour to Sebastian, who had ambitions to be a recording star, in return for his support playing Motown discs on his WXYZ radio show. If the ploy worked, it couldn’t save Miracle Records; this single stiffed (obviously) and after a few more commercial flops, the label was shut down for good a couple of months later. It didn’t help Sebastian either; he would have no more records released (on Motown or anywhere else) and quietly went back to his broadcasting career.

MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT

(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)

You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.

The story is that Berry owed Sebastion a favour for having plugged his records. Sort of the music industry equivalent to “the vanity press”. It makes Dora Hall’s “efforts” sound almost palatable, at least by comparison.

Joel Sebastian was a longtime radio personality in Chicago, working at WLS, WCFL and WIND (among others). Had no idea he’d recorded any songs, much less for Motown. Willing to bet he NEVER played these during any of his Chicago radio gigs!

I lived in Chicago then, but only listened to WGES and WVON (when the latter started in 1963. I would hear WLS (Chicago’s major pop station) once in a while on someone else’s radio, but don’t remember their DJs. But, Sebastian must have been on WIND, as I never listened to that station, and WCFL was “easy listening music” at that time.

Motown Junkies

This is Motown Junkies, an unofficial guide to every Motown single ever released, or planned for release, on every US Motown label (or via Tamla Motown in the UK), featuring reviews of each A-side and B-side in chronological order. New reviews appear every couple of days.

Think of it as an unauthorised track-by-track companion to the magnificent The Complete Motown Singles CD box sets, and beyond, with marks out of ten.

I'm NOT Paul Nixon.

FURTHER INFORMATION

More info about the blog (and me) can be found here. If you want to leave a comment on any review, please feel free to do so - all feedback, corrections, disagreements and encouragements gratefully received. If you've something you'd rather not say in public, I can be contacted at fosse8 at gmail dot com.

(Oh, and if you arrived here looking for the Motown Junkies music group, they're nothing to do with me, I'm afraid - but they are very nice people, and they can be found at www.motownjunkies.com instead.)

HOW TO USE THIS BLOG

You can jump straight to the full list of reviews so far in the Master Index, or browse by label instead.

If you're looking for something a bit more specific, you can click an artist's name in the "Artist" menu at the top of the screen to see a little biography and all the reviews we've done for them so far. Only people whose records I've already discussed appear there at the moment - more names will be added to the lists all the time as I work my way through Motown's history, so do keep checking back!

Alternatively, the front page displays excerpts from the most recent reviews, and on the right hand side of the screen you'll see a list of the most recent entries and also a sampling of the most popular entries from the last 48 hours, as well as the latest comments left by visitors.

Dive in, explore and have fun!

LEGAL STUFF

This is an unofficial site, and is not affiliated in any way with Universal Motown, Hip-O Select or any of the artists referred to in the blog.